Dispartiy

On the radio this morning there was a piece about the Olympics. The were discussing how many of the extravagant building that are housing the events were built by poor workers who couldn't afford to buy tickets to see the events. A startling disparity that will be forgotten in the midst of the excitement.

I see this disparity up close when to the shopping plaza near my house early in the morning. In the shopping plaza there is a Home Depot, and if you get there early enough you will see men, mostly of Hispanic decent, standing in the parking lot. These men are waiting for work, they are day labors. These men leave every morning to work in homes that they couldn't afford to live.

Money...It's Not Just A Pink Floyd Song

For the past three months I have become more diligent with my finances. I have been keeping a spreadsheet of all my expenses and tracking how I spend my money. Also on Friday I had my yearly review at work and the small pay raise that comes with it. With both of these things happening, I think I am ready to do something that I have been wanting to do for a long time. Figure out how I can manage and spend my money justly. Not a small task by any means and fought with many difficult questions.

To start with I can think of two options; A graduated tithe or capping my income. A graduated tithe as I understand it has a base income with a 10% tithe and anything above that is tithed at a higher rate. Capping your income is just as it implies, you figure out what you need to live on and give away everything above that. I am not sure which one is better but I am leaning towards capping my income just because there is less math involved.

In order to make this process "just" I feel as though I have to base it on some facts. In researching I came up with a few disturbing things. The 2006 US poverty level for a single person is $10,400.00 a year. (Click) The 2006 US annual household income is $48,201.00. (Click) Now I realize that I live in a major US city (Boston) and that these two numbers would be higher for my area, but I can not understand how anyone could live on these incomes per year. If I am to manage my money justly I feel as though I should somehow acknowledge people in these situations.

Here come the hard questions:
1) As I look at my three months of expenses, I find that my highest expenses are: Savings, Rent, Tithe, & Food in that order. (All other expenses are under 10% of my monthly income) Fortunately I do not have any student loans, one of the unspoken benefits of dropping out of college. I feel as though I am living simply: I don't have cable, I share a car, I have started to buy clothes at thrift shops and I rent a modest apartment well under the median price. Given that information, I also make 25% more than the average American household, but I still feels like there is not enough. Clearly given the information I have collected about my life over the past three months this is not the case. Why is this?

2) Part of managing my money Justly is how I give it away and how much. Presently I give my tithe to an urban minority church that I have a connection with. But where do I go beyond that? How do I choose other organizations to give to? Do I given domestically Do it give internationally? Do I give to both, and in what percentage? Do I give to secular organizations?

3) As you man have picked up in my listing of monthly expenses, savings is the largest category. In fact it makes up about 22% of my income. This is certainly not the norm in America and not the norm for most of my life, only about the past 6 months. The reason for this is that I want to buy my first home. Even at the present high rate it will take me a couple of year to get a down payment together. Remember I live in Boston. (I also want to put about 20% down.) I am wondering if it is just for me to put so much money into savings. Should I cut back and give more of that money away?

In conclusion, there are a lot of questions I have been struggling with in the past few days. Any thoughts would be helpful. Also if you have any figured this out for yourself, please let me know how you handle it. I am planning on talking this through with a friend this week to help get some perspective.

What to do with your economic stimulus refund?

The other day I had a great discussion about what do to with my economic stimulus refund come May. (Click) The conversation resulted in a pledge to give away 1/2 of the money received to the poor in our neighborhoods. Check it out and let me know what you think. (Click)

Rich Christians in and Age of Hunger - Book Review

In recent years there has been a lot of talk about poverty from the Christian perspective. Ronald Sider's book Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger has helped to shape that conversation. Sider takes the time to layout the facts, establishes a biblical foundation about poverty, and how it can be ended.

If you are easily bored by facts this might not be the book for you. Filled with dates, percentages about everything from calorie consumption data to Gross Domestic Product growth, it can make your head spin at times. But Sider does a good job at explaining the facts of poverty in terms that people can understand. On a side note the book is currently in it's 5th edition, so the facts are being updated every couple of years to stay current.

A shining example of Siders insight into the economics of poverty is his explanation the Gross Domestic Product. He points out that many negative things can actually help the GDP grow. A much better indicator of growth is the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI). It takes into account factors like enviromental polution and longer work hours for the same pay. According to the GPI American life hasn't gotten much better sense the 1970's!

The only down side to the book is it's lack of answering the "What can I do now" question. Although Sider does provide an entire section to answer this question, and talks about the concept of a graduated tithe, I felt as though I would like more concrete steps. Sider talks more about what the Federal Government could do to end poverty than about how the individual can. Having thought about this issue for the past two year and being ready to take on more personal commitments I was a little disappointed.

Over all I highly recommend this book, it is a great way to get the facts on poverty and some biblical perspective too.

Last Night

Last night I went to Park Street Church to hear Jim Wallis talk and promote his new book "The Great Awakening" Over all it is a pleasure to hear Jim speak, and I went away encouraged. Feeling that what I am doing in my community matters and is at the heart of God.

I also went away a little disappointed. During a time of question and answer some one asked the question "Ok I believe you, now what?" Jim's answer was to join an organization, suggesting one of the few that were at the meeting.

Join an organization?!? I do feel that finding like minded people is important but this feels like it's not enough. Jim noted in his talk that churches often only ask for the perimeters of our lives. Telling people to join an organization feels like the same.

Here are a few suggestion that I would have liked to have heard:

Sell your possessions and give the money to the poor. (Your big screen TV, your Xbox. The books you don't read, then you can sell your book shelf too!)

Leave your comfortable apartment and move to Roxbury, Dorchester, or East Boston and live among the poor.

Take a serious look at your finances. Try to give more that 10%, try to live on a graduated tithe.

I don't understand why these suggestions weren't given as next steps also.

Follow the Money

Here's a great mashup of a google map and wealth in Boston.

Liberation Theology

In an article in the globe today, discussed "Religious Fundamentalism" There was an interesting paragraph.

The phenomenon of "fundamentalism" has made an extraordinary impact on the world. But what is it? The scholar Gabriel A. Almond defines fundamentalism as "religious militance by which self-styled 'true-believers' attempt to arrest the erosion of religious identity, fortify the borders of the religious community, and create viable alternatives to secular institutions and behaviors." Some fundamentalists pursue openly political agendas (Northern Ireland, Israel, Iran). Some are apolitical (Latin American Pentecostalism). In war zones (Sudan, Afghanistan, Palestine, Sri Lanka), fundamentalism is energizing conflict. Most notably, the warring groups in Iraq have jelled around fundamentalist religion.

With the negative connotation that surrounds religious fundamentalism these days I found it interesting that Latin America, the only place where fundamentalism has taken an apolitical stance, is the only place where religious fundamentalism is doing more good than harm. From what I understand of Latin American religion and Liberation Theology, they aren't passive about there politics. They are infact quite vocal about where they stand. They have been able to position themselves as a prophetic voice against the government, calling them into account when they do wrong. They also position themselves with the poor, supporting them, and loving them, and speaking on there behalf. North America could learn from there example.

Leadership Development & Loving Your Neighbor

So I was at a meeting tonight for people interested in church planting. There were many things discussed, but one thing that was stressed was that people who are good church planters, are people who are good at leadership development. Leadership development basically means that you a good at identifying people who you can invest in and who grow into leadership positions. This has been one of the greatest incite that has come from the Evangelical church. Over the past 30 years there has been a lot of thought put into church planting, in particular leadership development, and it has greatly benefited the Church worldwide.

After the meeting I was reflecting on what was said, and it seams to me that the Evangelical church might be teaching that leadership development and loving your neighbor are the same thing. That the most living thing you could do for someone was invest in them and to develop them into a leader.

I would agree that leadership development is a form of loving your neighbor, but loving your neighbor is much more than leadership development. When Jesus talked about loving your neighbor he was talking about loving the poor and investing in people where you would not see a return. It's sad for me to see that we're picking up on the key incite of leadership development, but were missing a key discipleship principal of loving your neighbor.